We found 116 results that contain "#iteach.msu.edu"

Section 1- Intro
Resource Overview (you are here) 
Think of this article as your table of contents for this playlist. By clicking the hyperlinked titles below or by visiting the full playlist and using the menu in the left column to navigate to articles listed here.
5 Things to do on #iteachmsu
This article is a brief introduction to five functions on iteach.msu.edu. You might want to read if... you’re new to the site and looking for different ways to engage.
Section 2 - Accessibility
Accessibility Checklist for Word-
This article describes the 5 major areas to make Word Documents accessible. You might read this article if… you create word documents that are shared with others to ensure everyone has equal access to the document content. 
LEAD - Digital Access & Inclusion
This article provides an overview of MSU’s Web Accessibility Policy and recognizes relevant units on campus involved with said policy. You might want to read if... you’re looking for ways you can take action to ensure web accessibility is being met!
Section 3 - Inclusion
Cultivating Inclusive Classrooms: Inclusive Curriculum Design
This article discusses some ways educators can make more inclusive curricular design choices. You might read this article if… you’re not sure where to start when it comes to inclusivity and/or could use a few tips for being intentionally inclusive in your design decisions.
Cultivating Inclusive Classrooms: Toward Linguistic Inclusion
This article introduces the idea of linguistic inclusive classrooms as those with nuanced understandings of linguistic diversity (both linguistic repertoire and sociolinguistic competence). You might read this article if… you are interested in practical tips for linguistic inclusion. 
MSU Resources on Civility and Community Enhancement in Academic Environments
This article is a collection of resources aimed at helping MSU Educators navigate the diverse climates and cultures of MSU. You might read this article if… you need help identifying the units and their established supports for supporting an academic environment that welcomes every individual and respects their unique talents.
Section 4 - Educational technology
Free MSU Academic Technology Tools, A-Z and by Use Case
This article is an overview of technology tools that are free for MSU educators. You might read this article if… you have an idea of your technology needs but don’t know what is available. 
Teaching with Teams
This article discusses Microsoft Teams (available to all MSU Educators) as a tool for teaching and learning. You might want to read this article if… you’re looking to learn more about teams and/or are curious about strengths Teams has in a teaching and learning context. 
Flipgrid: Bringing Conversation to Online Learning
This article introduces Flipgrid as a tool to invigorate classroom conversations in remote or blended settings. You might want to read this article if… you care about livening up your digital classroom conversations and want to learn more about the features of Flipgrid!
Producing Accessible Equations 
This article provides an introduction to requirements, tools, and technology that can help make mathematical equations accessible digitally. You might read this article if… you utilize equations in any of your instruction!
Section 5 - Classroom Teaching Tools
Storytelling for Learning 1: Creating Meaning from Chaos
This article is the first in a series of three that focuses on storytelling. You might read this article if… the idea of storytelling and its role in teaching and learning, interests you. (This article is also a cool example of an engaging way to share things on iteach.msu.edu!)
Five Ways to Make Learning Relevant
In this article, the author shares a first-hand account of discovery on ways educators can help situate their teaching in learners’ experiences. You might read this article if… you are interested in five pedagogical moves that can help you make learning more relevant for students. 
10 Tips for Your First Day of Class
This article is a fun way to center on some practical tips for kicking off a new semester. Bookmark this for Spring if you’re not teaching this summer! You might read this article if… you’re in need of a smile (it’s GIF-based) or a confidence booster!
A Case for More Testing: The Benefits of Frequent, Low-Stakes Assessments
This article introduces low-stakes assessments as an alternative to testing. You might read this article if… you’re looking for more information on the benefits of low-stakes assessment and/or want tips for maximizing the benefits without adding undue stress!
Section 6 - Building Community 
Building Community Engagement into Your Course: Preparation
This article is a great intro to the idea of engagement and how engagement can be intentionally integrated into learning experiences. You might read this article if… you’re new to engagement or are looking for ways to determine if integrating engagement is a good fit for your instruction. 
Planning for Cooperative Learning
This article introduces the idea of cooperative learning, an active learning strategy, in contrast to traditional lecturing. You might read this article if… you’re looking for direct and practical ways to incorporate cooperative learning into your classroom.
Three Levels of Praxis: A Model for Reflection on Teaching
In this article, the author shares their own MSU “origin story” as an example of reflection as an example to support the importance of the practice. You might read this article if… you are looking for the what, why, and how of reflection with sample prompts. 
2021 Educator Awards
This article lists all the recipients of the Provost's 2021 #iteachmsu Educator Award by college. You can click the college names to read their nomination stories. You might read this article if... you're looking for inspiration and/or other great educators to connect with!
Section 7 - Reflect & Apply note: This content was originally posted in affiliation with the Teaching Toolkit Tailgate (TTT); an annual "event" to share practical tools and tips with educators at MSU. Historically, the TTT has been hosted in-person, online, as a solo event, and in conjunction with the Spring Conference on Teaching, Learning and Student Success. In attempts to connect broader audiences with these key resources, we have retitled the collection "Getting Started- Educator Resource Overview".Photo by Gia Oris on Unsplash

This week, we are featuring Candace Robertson, Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) Assistant Director.  Candace was recognized via iteach.msu.edu's Thank and Educator Initiative! We encourage MSU community members to nominate high-impact Spartan educators (via our Thank an Educator form) regularly!
Read more about Candace’s perspectives below. #iteachmsu's questions are bolded below, followed by their responses!


You were recognized via the Thank an Educator Initiative. In one word, what does being an educator mean to you? 
Brainstorm. 
What does this word/quality look like in your practice? Have your ideas on this changed over time? If so, how?
In practice, this looks like listening to learners and brainstorming with them to maximize their learning experiences and future professional opportunities. This is done with empathy and creative thinking, as I act as a solution-oriented sounding board. It also looks like me brainstorming as a reflective practitioner to improve the content, experience, and my facilitation abilities.
Tell me more about your educational “setting.” This can include, but not limited to departmental affiliations, community connections, co-instructors, and students. (AKA, where do you work?)
 I work for the College of Education’s Master of Arts in Educational Technology (MAET) program, in the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology, and Special Education (CEPSE). I advise our MAET students and teach courses for our program as well, among my other responsibilities. My interactions with learners and our instructors ranges from in-person, to hybrid, to fully online.
What is a challenge you experience in your educator role? Any particular “solutions” or “best practices” you’ve found that help you support student success at the university despite/in the face of this?
A current challenge I am facing in my advising and teaching role is the hardships that PK-12 educators (many of our students) are facing in their professional roles and how that is impacting their ability to make the time and cognitive space needed for their graduate coursework. To support this challenge, our program provided training in trauma-informed practice to our instructors. On the student side, we worked with MSU’s CAPS to offer group connection sessions to focus on mental health.
What are practices you utilize that help you feel successful as an educator?
 It helps me feel successful as an educator when a learner shares a positive or critical reflection of their experience with me. In working with educators as our learners, I want to be the best that I can be and when I’ve created the setting where the learner feels comfortable enough to reach out and share feedback at any point in the experience, I know that I’ve done well in building a trusting community focused on growth – my own included.
What topics or ideas about teaching and learning would you like to see discussed on the iteach.msu.edu platform? Why do you think this conversation is needed at MSU? 
 I would be very interested to learn more about what other educators on campus are doing to support students who are facing challenging work demands and how they are accounting for this in their teaching and learning spaces. This is especially needed at the master’s level, where the majority of students are working full-time and balancing those demands with their graduate experience.
What are you looking forward to (or excited to be a part of) next semester?
We are excited to be able to offer our hybrid and overseas (face-to-face) cohorts this summer, after postponing the last two summers due to COVID-19. I’m excited for the opportunity to bring our students together safely in the same physical space to watch them explore and create together!



Don't forget to celebrate individuals you see making a difference in teaching, learning, or student success at MSU with #iteachmsu's Thank an Educator initiative. You might just see them appear in the next feature!

The following is the educator receiving the #iteachmsu Educator Award from the College of Osteopathic Medicine. For more information on these awards, check out the article entitled "#iteachmsu Educator Awards".
Jane Gudakunst: Her passion for teaching students how to learn has been very inspiring. She makes students feel safe and motivates them to learn.
Anyone can recognize a fellow Spartan for their contributions to MSU's teaching and learning mission or for how they made a lasting impression on your experience. All you have to do is click "Thank an Educator" in the left panel of iteach.msu.edu. From there you'll see a short form where you can enter the name, netID, and a short story of the educator you'd like to recognize.

This week, we are featuring Dr. Sandro Barros, an Assistant Professor of Multilingualism, Curriculum & Instruction in MSU’s Department of Teacher Education.  Dr. Barros was recognized via iteach.msu.edu's Thank and Educator Initiative! We encourage MSU community members to nominate high-impact Spartan educators (via our Thank an Educator form) regularly!
Read more about Dr. Barros’ perspectives below. #iteachmsu's questions are bolded below, followed by their responses!


You were recognized via the Thank an Educator Initiative. In one word, what does being an educator mean to you? Share with me what this word/quality looks like in your practice?
Whenever I think about what being an educator entails, I think about the Latin roots of the English word “education:” educare, which means 'to train or to mold' and educere, which means 'to draw out'. While the two meanings are quite different, they are both represented in the ethical activity of the educator. But to me, educere is more appealing because it suggests  a particular attention to intelligence as equal in human beings. We differ biologically and intellectually from one another. So, it is only natural to expect that our intelligence will manifest differently. 
Have your ideas on this changed over time? If so, how?
Thinking about the task of educators in connection with educere helps me deconstruct pernicious ideas around notions of intelligence as something that our system encourages as quantifiable. It also keeps me on my toes regarding how I must model to students the kind of deep listening society so sorely needs to heal itself as it deals with misinformation. 
Tell me more about your educational “setting.” This can include, but not limited to departmental affiliations, community connections, co-instructors, and students. (Aka, where do you work?)
I am currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education. I teach graduate and undergraduate courses in the Curriculum, Instruction, and Teacher Education program and advise dissertations on subjects related to the Educational Humanities, Multilingualism, and Curriculum Theory. I am also affiliated with the Second Language Studies program and Latin American and Caribbean studies.  
What is a challenge you experience in your educator role?
Although I have been teaching for decades, listening deeply and mindfully to students is something I struggle with to this day. I am not sure if the level of listening I am describing here is what you would consider a “best practice.” Teaching is both artful and directive, so it responds to different criteria depending on whom you ask and where you find yourself. All I know is that teaching is a mysterious activity done in communion and through communicative means. Accordingly, it can introduce new possibilities to see, think, and feel the world in different ways. 
Throughout my life, I’ve had great teachers who performed the type of attentive listening to which I aspire. Their listening afforded me the necessary space to think for myself out loud and work out problems without interferences that felt oppressive or traumatizing. If there’s a generative practice associated with teaching, listening is it, mainly as we think about how our listening interventions can bring out greater intellectual clarity. Having experienced from my teachers the effect of the power of listening deeply and authentically, I know such a skill can be cultivated as a habit. 
What are practices you utilize that help you feel successful as an educator?
I feel most “successful” when the relationships I build with students allow for transparency of commitments and expectations that will enable them to develop their intellectual curiosity as well as my own. As I mentioned earlier, deep listening is crucial. 
What topics or ideas about teaching and learning would you like to see discussed on the iteach.msu.edu platform? Why do you think this conversation is needed at msu? 
I would like us to engage in a serious conversation about mental health. And I would like this conversation to take place away from the toxic positivity discourse that highlights meritocratic perseverance. We struggle a lot, and we fail a lot. The kind of “personal conquest narrative” we see in education today is imbued with banal sentimentality and hope.  would do well to bear in mind that hope, in particular, without criticism, detracts us from epistemic and structural injustices. Being more open about our struggles and failures and being honest with ourselves and each other requires difficult conversations, and compassion is an essential practice to achieve that goal. But for that to occur, we need to develop a culture that activates our dispositions to cooperate instead of competing for limited resources. The toll that social inequalities spilling over higher education takes in our psyches is grave. To heal forward, we need to tend to our wounds collectively so that we may have the kinds of difficult conversations we need to; not despite our incommensurable differences but precisely because of them.
What are you looking forward to (or excited to be a part of) this semester?
I am teaching TE908 Sociocultural Foundations of English Learning. I am also involved in a project on transnational heritage language activism inside and outside school settings. I am interested in the mundane strategies people employ to demonstrate new models of linguistic citizenship within diasporic cultures, thereby challenging nationalist and essentialist views of language and culture. I am primarily concerned with the activism of teachers, artists, and public intellectuals around language and citizenship issues as forms of public pedagogy. I hope this work can give us some clues as to how to imagine more desirable solutions to problems caused by nationalism’s enduring presence in education—namely, how we approach minoritized students’ education vis-a-vis identity politics and strategic essentialism. My scholarly work has taught me that these options have not served marginalized students very well. In addition to a core course I teach at the undergraduate level, these activities keep me pretty busy, but I very much enjoy them.



Don't forget to celebrate individuals you see making a difference in teaching, learning, or student success at MSU with #iteachmsu's Thank an Educator initiative. You might just see them appear in the next feature!

Nomar sought to create a course that would cover all of the practical bases for his field of study, Power Electronics. Nomar identified a significant gap between the theory covered in his university courses and the implementation of course material in professional settings. He took leadership in organizing a course that would help remedy this gap. 
 
Final Report: https://iteach.msu.edu/posts/preview_attachments?post_id=1487 

The following is a list of the educators receiving the #iteachmsu Educator Award from College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. For more information on these awards, check out the article entitled "#iteachmsu Educator Awards".
Tyler Becker: Dr. Becker is a wonderful colleague and faculty member. He cares deeply about teaching and students. He continually works to improve and expand his teaching skills. He applies those skills to HN250 as a co-instructor working with me to regularly adapt and update the course. He instructs and interacts with students across the continuum of our curriculum impacting students in our major all along their journey. It is a pleasure to work with him as a colleague here at MSU. Thank you for all that you do for our students and colleagues here at MSU.
Anyone can recognize a fellow Spartan for their contributions to MSU's teaching and learning mission or for how they made a lasting impression on your experience. All you have to do is click "Thank an Educator" in the left panel of iteach.msu.edu. From there you'll see a short form where you can enter the name, netID, and a short story of the educator you'd like to recognize.

The following is a list of the educators receiving the #iteachmsu Educator Award from College of Social Science. For more information on these awards, check out the article entitled "#iteachmsu Educator Awards".
Kevin Ford: On the first day of the semester, Dr. Ford told us how excited he was to teach this class because he took this class in college and it made him want to get a PhD in Organizational Psychology. Dr. Ford shows up to every single lecture with the same level of enthusiasm and love for teaching. I have never had a professor convey so much passion about their class in my four years here at MSU. He makes himself available whenever he has the time for office hours, questions, advice, etc. Dr. Ford is an effective professor because he's an expert in his field but also an expert communicator. He lectures conversationally, is personable and approachable. Multiple people always stay after class to update them about life events and talk about what they found interesting in the lecture. Dr. Ford has intentionally connected course topics to relevant life skills and knowledge, so I have gained even more than I thought I would from taking his class. Dr. Ford is an outstanding professor, researcher and mentor and deserves to be recognized.
Anyone can recognize a fellow Spartan for their contributions to MSU's teaching and learning mission or for how they made a lasting impression on your experience. All you have to do is click "Thank an Educator" in the left panel of iteach.msu.edu. From there you'll see a short form where you can enter the name, netID, and a short story of the educator you'd like to recognize.

The following is a list of the educators receiving the #iteachmsu Educator Award from the Lyman Briggs College. For more information on these awards, check out the article entitled "#iteachmsu Educator Awards".
 
Greg Lusk: I really enjoyed my Intro to HPS class with Dr. Lusk. I feel as though we covered a lot of diverse topics in this class, most of which have never been addressed in a classroom setting for me before. I was comfortable speaking and participating in conversation without judgement. I also feel that my writing skills vastly improved throughout the semester. Dr. Lusk read all my essays thoroughly and left very detailed notes that helped me fix the exact problem. I am much more confident in my ability to produce well written essays after this class. When I had clarifying questions in class, or through email, Dr. Lusk was always available to answer them. Overall, I enjoyed this class and felt that I benefited significantly due to Dr. Lusk's teaching.
 
Samantha Cass: Dr.Cass is a wondeful professor and is always ready to answer your questions. She cares for her students alot and really works hard to make the class an amazing learning experience. I always used to get excited to come to my Chemistry class and then stay back to talk to her about all the wonderful chemistry things. She accomdates with your problems as well. In a nutshell, Dr.Cass is an amazing educator and an even wonderful person.
 
Anyone can recognize a fellow Spartan for their contributions to MSU's teaching and learning mission or for how they made a lasting impression on your experience. All you have to do is click "Thank an Educator" in the left panel of iteach.msu.edu. From there you'll be directed to a form where you can enter the name, netID, and a short story of the educator you'd like to recognize.